Seriously, though, I know there are many beautiful aspects of Russian history, architecture and art, music, etc., but every farking scene I see in photos and video of modern Russia seems to have this dark cloud lingering over it.

qlenfg:Meh. Springtime in North Texas. When it punches holes in windshields and leaves dents in cars you can't reproduce with a hammer, give me a call.

Recently had the roof of my car cut off and a new one welded in due to hail damage. Roof on house also needed to be re-shingled.

Our water feature out back looked like it was a serious fountain from all the splashing from the hail stones. The road had a good inch to two inches of hailstones when it was done, lasted probably less than 10 minutes.

qlenfg:Meh. Springtime in North Texas. When it punches holes in windshields and leaves dents in cars you can't reproduce with a hammer, give me a call.

Yeah I got caught in one of those while visiting a friend in Reading PA not too long. The next morning it was funny/sad to see all the trashed cars up and down the road. Smashed the crap out of the mall skylights

Seriously, though, I know there are many beautiful aspects of Russian history, architecture and art, music, etc., but every farking scene I see in photos and video of modern Russia seems to have this dark cloud lingering over it.

Piizzadude:qlenfg: Meh. Springtime in North Texas. When it punches holes in windshields and leaves dents in cars you can't reproduce with a hammer, give me a call.

Yeah I got caught in one of those while visiting a friend in Reading PA not too long. The next morning it was funny/sad to see all the trashed cars up and down the road. Smashed the crap out of the mall skylights

Seriously, though, I know there are many beautiful aspects of Russian history, architecture and art, music, etc., but every farking scene I see in photos and video of modern Russia seems to have this dark cloud lingering over it.

Тоска.

It's hard to explain, that grey cloud. But it's there.

I'm actually reading the Brothers Karamazov (yes translated into English, by MacAndrew). And I get it.

But why think the "syndrome" is specifically Russian? "A dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for..." That sounds pretty universal to me, a personal temperament rather than a "national type." Maybe some Russian intelligentsia in a certain period wrote about it more than "we" do, but what do you find in Dostoevsky that you don't see in say Flannery O'Connor?

As for Nabokov, well, in culture he was more German/French than Russian. It's hard to think of even Gogol writing Lolita. But then I'm biased: to me an American college town is Knoxville or Columbus, not Cambridge or Palo Alto.